The Christmas Doghouse

It was Saturday morning. All was calm. I lay in my bed, nestled in my blankets, one of my dogs snuggled in with me. I woke up at the unbelievable hour of 9 a.m. (truth be told….I would have slept longer but my phone rang). After stretching, scratching my dog, and letting out some internal pent-up energy (hehe), I got up, put on some Saturday morning sweat pants and t-shirt, and slowly yet methodically made my way down the stairs, joints popping and cracking in a not unpleasant way. There are certainly worse ways to wake up.

I see Anne, sitting on the couch and surfing on her laptop. ‘Good morning, love!’, I exclaimed. She smiled at me, and spread her arms out, at first in what I thought was a hugging gesture, but was instead the universal sign of saying ‘voila!’, like she was showing me something. I wasn’t quite fully awake yet. I didn’t see the signs for what they were. I casually glance around the room, not noticing anything, then said that now famous word that gets many of us men in trouble. ‘What?’, I exclaimed. And then I got ‘the look’.

It is worthwhile to pause at this point to explain ‘the look’. I’ve written about it before. Anne is a loving, caring partner. I couldn’t ask for more, really. But she has perfected ‘the look’ such that it is practically a lethal weapon. I believe it could and should be licenced. She is many things: a red-head, a teacher, a wife, a mother…..and when these are combined, is capable of such love and mercy. She’s also quite deadly. Her ‘look’ can peel chrome off a bumper. It’s quite frightening. To add effect, her nostrils flare, her hair starts to stand on end, and little wisps of smoke emanate from her ears. I was hit by all of these, and more.

And so, we are back to ‘what?’. I’m standing there, the smoke from her ears now rising towards the ceiling. Alarm bells are ringing in my head. ‘Look around again!’ my mind exclaimed. And so I did. Apparently while I was blissfully asleep, Anne was busily decorating the house for Christmas. By now you may know that I have great disdain for decorating, yet I love when it is decorated. It’s a dichotomy, I know, but one I share with others I’m sure. And Anne, blown knee and all, went out to the storage room, hauled in our Christmas stuff, placed it all, and put away all the boxes. It was beautiful. And of course, I hadn’t noticed.

Being faced with ‘the look’, I tried to repair the damage. ‘Wow!’ I said. ‘Best decorations EVER!!’ I exclaimed. It wasn’t working. It probably didn’t help that I was looking at the television while saying this, watching the sports highlights. She asked me how I liked the tree, to which I nodded enthusiastically before realizing he still hadn’t done that part yet. Oops. This doghouse moment was getting deeper.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, all of the above mentioned subject is what led to me going shopping with Anne, and buying even more decorations. Let this be a lesson to us all…..pay attention!! Or learn to fake it better than I did.